Hanbit Winter
by Osheen Nevoy
Summary: Dong Janggun (the Winter General) struggles with the loss of his sister who shared his body for over 1000 years. Lee Han-Joo, with no supernatural aptitude, has inherited a real estate agency that specializes in haunted properties. The two join forces, and Dong Janggun becomes the new partner in Hanbit Real Estate. Also includes a brief crossover with Arang and the Magistrate.
1. Chapter 1: The New Partner

Author's Note:

I've arrived over a year late for _Hwayugi _fandom, since presumably the heyday for fandom of the show was when it was airing in Korea and online, in late 2017 and early 2018. Be that as it may, my family and I recently watched it on dvd, and I felt impelled to write this story, which takes place in the final episode of the show and shortly after.Unlike a number of other _Hwayugi _fan works, this story does not explore ideas of what might have happened next to hero and heroine Son Oh-Gong and Jin Seon-Mi, but instead details some adventures shared by Dong Janggun (the Winter General) and the overwhelmed realtor, Lee Han-Joo. Dong Janggun was my favorite character on the show, and I wanted to explore some of what he must have been dealing with after the loss of his sister who had shared his body for the past 1000+ years. Also I felt that I couldn't just leave Lee Han-Joo with his last line on the show, "I have to get drunk. I have to get drunk. So scary." Someone had to come to his rescue, and the Winter General seemed like an obvious person to do so.

In addition to being a work of _Hwayugi_ fandom, this story also contains a brief cross-over with another Korean drama, _Arang and the Magistrate_. The two shows seemed an obvious choice to pair together, considering that both deal with gods and demons and their interactions with living humans. Thus my favorite character from _Arang _makes a cameo appearance here.

In a few places, numbers in brackets appear in the text, which correspond with end-notes at the end of the chapter.

Naturally, I don't own any of these characters or situations (except for the ones I created), and I'm not making any profit from this except for the joy of writing it, and of hopefully sharing the story with others who will enjoy it.

**Hanbit Winter**

_A Hwayugi/Korean Odyssey Fanfiction_

Chapter One: The New Partner

My loneliness is no greater than the loneliness of anyone else.

I know that statement is true. But what I know and what I feel are two different things.

What I _feel _is that no one has ever endured such loneliness as mine. I feel there has never been a grief like the grief which haunts me now. I feel that no loss has ever pained anyone as deeply as my loss pains me.

But I know what I feel is nonsense.

My loneliness and loss are no worse than what Ma Wang has suffered, through all the centuries of his separation from Princess Iron Fan. My grief is no sharper than what I have seen in the face of Jeo Pal-Gye, when he thinks of our winsome friend the bewitched corpse, Bu Ja.

And I know that I feel no more lost than did the bewildered human man who sat across the bar from me one beautifully cold March night, clutching at his glass of whiskey and mourning his CEO and friend.

"My CEO was a very special person," my lone customer murmured.

That, of course, is true. It is true in myriad ways that Lee Han-Joo of Hanbit Real Estate does not dream of imagining.

Lee Han-Joo stared at the whiskey as it glimmered around its gems of ice. Still staring at his drink, he wandered into a slow, quiet chain of reminiscences.

"When she was there, so many big shots came to our office. Lucifer Entertainment's chairman would often come to see her. Top stars would come, too. They were close. One time, M Group's chairman came to see her. And …" he paused, gazing into his memories. "More than anything," he said, "the most mysterious and extraordinary person was that man who loved my CEO."

Lee Han-Joo sighed and took a mournful sip of his drink. I watched the whiskey's warm summer glow swirl around the ice cubes of winter.

"Why would those people be around my CEO?" Lee Han-Joo persisted. "Maybe … maybe she wasn't human."

At that, I had to smile.

"Maybe it's the opposite," I told him quietly. "Only your CEO was human. It's possible that the rest weren't human, but demons."

That suggestion did not console my unhappy customer. He stared at me, wide-eyed. Then he protested, "Why are you saying something so scary?"

The look on his face made me think of a terrified puppy, begging its master to impose some sense and order on its world.

The thought occurred to me that Secretary Ma, the dog demon, would not appreciate that comparison. But it seemed valid to me.

After all, Secretary Ma has Ma Wang the Bull Demon King to give order to her world. If she did not have her all-encompassing role of serving Ma Wang in everything, might she not sometimes feel herself to be as lost as Lee Han-Joo was feeling now?

Another thought came to me: Lee Han-Joo was in need of help. And if my sister were here, she would help him.

It was an instinct which came to her as naturally as breathing: to help those who needed her help, whenever she could.

It does not come so naturally to me. But yet I have some of that instinct within me.

_And, _I told myself, _I can develop that instinct further. I can make myself become more like my sister._

_If I do so, perhaps the Heavens will let me feel closer to her._

"I went to a haunted house today," Lee Han-Joo was going on. "I won't be able to sleep."

I made my decision. If I did not decide it as swiftly as my sister would have done, at least I think the speed of my decision was close to hers.

I walked out from my place as bartender and took a seat on the bar stool next to Lee Han-Joo's.

Meanwhile, the grieving real estate agent flopped down his head on the bar, looking like a puppet with all of its strings cut. Desperately he repeated to himself, "I have to get drunk. I have to get drunk. So scary."

_This,_ I thought, _is no way to leave things; not when he has a wife and children at home, whose day will be far improved if he does not stagger home to them sobbing drunk._

I said to him, "Your CEO was a customer here. She was here quite often in recent months; sometimes on her own, sometimes with those friends you were speaking of."

Lee Han-Joo sat up again and blinked at me. Blankly he asked, "She was?"

I nodded and patted the bright yellow-and-white umbrella where it lay so cheerily on the bar. "I assume that's how her umbrella knew to bring you here."

To that, he thought of nothing to say. He merely cast me a big-eyed stare.

"Your name is Lee Han-Joo, isn't it?" I prompted him, at which he gave a nod.

"Then, Lee Han-Joo-ssi, I have a business proposition to make to you."

The word "business" made him attempt to pull himself together. "You do?" he managed to ask. "Do you have property you want to sell?"

"No," I answered. "I think you should take me on as your business partner."

Once again, the poor man could do nothing except stare.

"You will not need to pay me," I went on, "although if you really feel you must, I can accept a very small percentage of your profits from each sale. You do know, don't you, that your late CEO Jin Seon-Mi could see ghosts and other spirits?"

More blinking followed; then at last his blankness dissipated as he compelled himself to think.

"Well," he slowly answered, "it really did seem as if she could. Sometimes I would notice her seeming to talk with things I couldn't see. And she could sell properties that nobody else could move. Places people said were haunted … she would always manage to clear up whatever was wrong with them, and then sell them on."

"Yes," I said. "And Hanbit Real Estate acquired a reputation for that skill. And that is the legacy you are attempting now to carry on."

"But I can't carry it on!" Lee Han-Joo burst out. "I can't see ghosts and spirits! I don't know anything about them! All I know is that they scare me out of my mind."

He looked like he was about to flop his head onto the bar again. To forestall that, I said firmly, "Exactly. Which is why you should take me on as your partner. You see, I can see ghosts and spirits, too."

Amusingly, he cast a furtive glance at his drink, as though afraid I might have slipped some dubious substance into it. When he made himself look at me again, he asked in a wary voice, "You do? Are you a medium? Or … an exorcist?"

"Not precisely. But I can see all the otherworldly beings. I will come with you to any property you're dealing with which has a troublesome reputation, and I guarantee to you that whatever ought to leave the property, will leave it."

From the way Lee Han-Joo was looking at me now, I imagined he had remembered my comment that the people who'd hung around Jin Seon-Mi were demons. Probably he had begun to wonder if in saying that, I'd been describing myself.

Which, of course, I had.

He did not quite dare to ask me anything about that. Instead he asked, not unreasonably, "Why do you want to do this?"

There were many answers to that, which I was not going to tell him.

_Because my sister would do it. Because she would want me to do it. Because helping you may bring me nearer to her._

Another facet to my business proposition occurred to me just then. It was extremely likely that Lee Han-Joo and I would encounter evil spirits in some of these properties that were brought to Hanbit Real Estate's attention. The task of removing those spirits, I could pass along to Ma Wang, to help him in his ongoing points-gathering campaign to get himself made a deity.

I gave Lee Han-Joo a far simpler answer than everything that was going through my mind. I simply said to him, "I would like to do it as my offering to the spirit of Jin Seon-Mi."

I had him, there. Since I had put it like that, there was now virtually no way that he could turn me down. He opened his mouth with a helpless look, fighting to think of what he ought to say.

I didn't want him to feel he was being forced into this—even if, in reality, he was. Attempting to provide him with something of a safety net, I said, "We need not enter into a contract on it yet. For now, you can accept my services on a trial basis. You say you went today to a haunted house. Let's you and I go there again tomorrow, or whenever you can next make an appointment to return. I will see whatever is there, and I will ensure that it departs, and the house becomes saleable once again."

"It's not actually a house," Lee Han-Joo murmured. "It's a shopping center. Well … well … all right, then. If you're really sure you want to do this."

"Let's exchange numbers," I told him. "You can text me when you've made the appointment." I took my phone from the pocket of my long black frock coat. I've noticed that I have worn all black more frequently since my sister died, but I don't think that is because I'm mimicking the westerners' tradition of wearing black when in mourning. I think, instead, I've been doing it to remind myself of my long-ago days as a magistrate in Hell—an era before my body became the refuge for my sister's soul. {1}

Dutifully Lee Han-Joo recited his phone number to me, and I entered it into my contacts. With a bit of fumbling he fished his phone from his coat pocket. As his fingers hovered over it, he realized, sounding surprised, "I don't know your name."

I hesitated, pondering the question of which name or title I preferred entrusting to him. Finally I said to him, "You can call me Gyeo-ul [winter]." {2}

Lee Han-Joo looked slightly startled, but he typed in the name without voicing any question. Considering the odd occurrences he has witnessed surrounding Jin Seon-Mi and Hanbit Real Estate, I imagine that a man who uses a more typically feminine name must seem to him a fairly minor oddity. {3}

After a few thank-yous and good-night platitudes, Lee Han-Joo finished his last swig of whiskey and departed, clutching Jin Seon-Mi's umbrella to him like the protective talisman it was.

He texted me shortly after 9:00 the next morning, setting an appointment for 11:00 and sending the address of the haunted shopping center. The place was in Jung-gu, an easy 20-minute walk from the bar.

When I arrived, I found Lee Han-Joo nervously lingering outside with the building's owner and making desperate efforts to maintain a cheerful conversation. I believe my new colleague was surprised to see I had actually turned up, and had not thought better of my whole unusual offer.

The building owner, round-faced, bespectacled and worried-looking—with a worry that was perfectly natural for the owner of a haunted property—was only too happy for Lee Han-Joo and me to go inside without him. As for the building, it was a forbidding-looking gray stone place that I thought I remembered having been built as a brewery, eighty years or so ago.

I wondered if the grudge-holding presences inside it might date to the brewery era. But when we reached the third-floor room where Lee Han-Joo told me he'd felt most uncomfortable on his earlier visit, I saw the ghosts were all of a more modern vintage.

From the clutter of desks and other relics of office equipment, the space up here seemed to have been used as the office for the shopping center. The ghosts of the building apparently made this their headquarters. There were three of them, their clothes dating them to probably sometime in the past thirty years.

The dominant personality among them was a woman on the older side of middle age. She sported a page-boy haircut, a hostile glance and a malignant smirk. The other two, who clearly followed the older woman's lead in all things, were a second woman, younger and taller than her leader, and a young-to-middle-aged man who seemed to be trying to disappear within his puffy brown ski jacket.

They were all dressed in cold-weather clothes, the ringleader's outfit including a lavender-colored sweater that I felt sure my sister would have said was the wrong color palette for its wearer. I wondered if perhaps some accident or disaster in wintertime might have brought all three of them here as ghosts together.

"Here," said Lee Han-Joo, trying and failing to stop his voice from quavering. "Here is where it felt the worst to me before …"

"I can see why," I told him.

Convulsively he thrust the furled umbrella ahead of him, as if it were a spear. "Why?" he asked. "Can you see it?"

"Them," I corrected. "There are three of them."

My new business partner gave an exceedingly audible gulp. "Three of them?"

"Lee Han-Joo-ssi, please wait outside for me. I'll need to have a conversation with them alone."

While the owner of Hanbit Real Estate made his hasty retreat, the male ghost asked the leader, "Who's this one? Do you think he can really see us?"

"Yes, I can," I said, before their leader could answer. "It's time for you three to move on from here. If you are ready for the Reapers to send you on, then stay here until they come for you. Otherwise, you need to move house now. If you are still here in three hours' time, the Reapers will take you."

The older woman gave a disdainful huff. "Who are you supposed to be?" she demanded. "You think _you're _some kind of Reaper?"

"No," I said truthfully, although if I had bothered to recite my résumé to them, I'm sure it would have been impressive. "I'm the person who is warning you. Whether you leave by your own choice or by force, you will be leaving today. It's your decision to make."

I turned and took my departure, while the younger woman asked a hesitant question, "What if he knows what he's talking about?"

"He doesn't," the ringleader spitefully snorted. "Arrogant little punk! Giving himself airs like he's some kind of King of Hell."

_No, _I thought as I headed down the stairs, _I'm not the King of Hell. I just used to work for him._

I suppose Jin Seon-Mi would have given a sympathetic hearing to the three ghosts' grudges—or, she would have done if the hag in charge of them could force herself to accept the sympathy. My sister, probably, would also have tried to listen to them; to find out what troubled them and do her best to ease their grievances. But their attitude annoyed me, and on this day I felt that I had no sympathy left on tap.

I would need to re-stock my sympathy before opening the bar tonight. But for now, I was almost sorry that I had granted the ghosts those three hours' grace. That old woman had succeeded in making herself a thorn in my eye. And if the other two couldn't resist her influence, then they could just share her fate.

Outside, Lee Han-Joo and the building's owner had given up trying to converse, and were both communing with their phones. I told my nervous associate, "Go ahead and take the property. There won't be any problem with it. You can text me when you've completed the paperwork, and I'll ensure the bad influences are cleaned out."

Lee Han-Joo took me at my word, although he must have had plenty of fears that he would find himself saddled with an unsellable haunted property. A couple of hours later, I got his text. I waited until the end of the three hours I had promised the ghosts; then I sent a text of my own, to a Reaper of my acquaintance. My sister had given me his number, though I had not seen him in person in over 500 years.

* * *

There are times, since my sister died, when I hate to see myself in a mirror. I have even sometimes thought of removing all the mirrors from the apartment and the bar, as though I were some vampire in a movie.

But I've told myself that would be pandering to my grief. The mirrors have stayed.

I don't think this feeling about mirrors is because I dislike the sight of myself. I think it is because I wish so horribly to see my sister there, instead.

My loneliness is no greater than anyone else's, but at times it feels impossible to believe that.

For over one thousand years, my sister Ha Sun Nyeo shared my body with me. {4} For all of that time, neither one of us was ever alone.

When I fell asleep at night, the activities of her life were like a lullaby, keeping me company. In the morning or the evening, when she or I woke to start our day, the other was there as a presence in our mind. We would report to each other, share news, compare notes. If I awoke in the night and had trouble getting back to sleep, I could linger as a spectator in the background of my sister's life. As I drifted into sleep again, I felt the caress of her voice, and the all-encompassing happiness of knowing I was not alone.

I have changed my mind so often, and so drastically, since she died. Sometimes I cannot bear to see the closet that is filled with her clothes. In those moments I think I will get rid of all of her clothing, at once. I will strip the clothes from her closet and give them away to some charity. I will empty the apartment of her jewelry, her make-up, her perfumes; everything.

Then at other times I become horrified to remember I was thinking that way. At those times, the thought of parting with her belongings feels like losing her all over again. That's when I think that I will never get rid of anything she owned. Perhaps the apartment, like the bar downstairs, will become a sort of shrine to her.

I know—when I am thinking more rationally—that no irrevocable decisions should be made in haste. Any decision about my sister that I have a strong chance of regretting, I should delay until my grief becomes something less of a madness.

I did get my hair cut a few days after she died. But hair, at least, will grow back. For decades I had kept my hair at around shoulder length, so Ha Sun Nyeo could style it as she liked during the nights, when our body was hers. When she was gone, I had my hair chopped to an ear-length style. I had thought that continuing to do my hair in that topknot I had worn for so long would be too painful a reminder of her.

But on that evening of the day when Lee Han-Joo and I had visited the haunted shopping center, when I had arisen after a few hours of fitful sleep, I stood in front of the mirror on the closet door and I thought, _Perhaps I will grow my hair longer again_.

_Maybe I'll grow it back to shoulder length. Maybe I won't even bother to wear it in a topknot. Maybe I will wear my hair in the way she did—although I have no doubt that I will never make it look as glamorous as she could._

I believe some acceptance came to me that evening. I accepted the understanding that I will never stop missing her, whether I am confronted with visual reminders of her, or not.

There is no point in trying not to see the things that remind me of her.

Accepting that I will never stop missing her is one thing. But am I being too optimistic—am I traveling too far in the opposite direction—if I hope that I may feel closer to my sister by looking more like her?

I glanced down at my hands and I thought that perhaps I would start painting my nails as she did. Simple nail-painting is not beyond my rudimentary make-up skills. Sometimes I would even do the nail-painting for her before my sister woke up, to save her some time when I knew she had a particularly busy schedule for the night ahead.

However, she never permitted me to start her makeup before she woke. In no sense do I resent her decision on that. Make-up is one means by which I will _not _attempt feeling closer to her.

Wearing long hair and nail-color may be reasonable steps to take in my efforts to deal with my grief. Trying to teach myself to do make-up that will not make me look like a clown, is not.

I was thinking also of something else, that evening while I considered what outfit I would wear for the night. I was thinking of the truly odd fact that until a few weeks ago, when my sister died, my body had not slept in over a thousand years.

Apparently, with us demons, the body does not actually require sleep, so long as the soul is getting sleep, instead. For all of the time my sister lived inside my body, her soul would sleep in the daytime while I had charge of the body, and my soul would sleep at night when I ceded control of it to her.

I wonder if my body actually feels any change, now that I am the only soul in it once more. Is there any difference, for a demon's body, between sleep that is engaged in only by the soul, and sleep that affects the body, as well?

That night I chose not to wear all black. I dressed in gray, instead. Perhaps I was smarting a little from that unpleasant ghost-woman's implication that I'd been trying to pass myself off as a Reaper.

On the subject of Reapers, when I awakened I'd found a text awaiting me from the one I had messaged earlier. The text read, "Message received; subjects dealt with."

That was all the communication I expected from him. I did not remember this particular Reaper being prone to chattiness. But my expectations turned out to be far from reality. That Reaper was the bar's first customer of the night.

He looked very much as I remembered him, despite the 500 or so years that intervened since last I saw him. He still wore a neatly-trimmed mustache and minimal beard. His handsome face still gave off the combined auras of quiet strength and melancholy. The notable difference was in his clothing, for his clothes were more-or-less modern, now. From the floor up, all of his outfit was deep black: shoes (and socks, as well, I presume), suit, shirt, tie, and fedora hat.

Naturally I did not make this comment aloud, but I was of two minds on whether he looked more like a Reaper, or like someone attending a costume party as a Prohibition-era American gangster. Although, as he reached the bar, I noticed that he wore his hair long, in a ponytail. That did detract a bit from the Prohibition gangster look.

"Moo Young-ssi," I greeted him. "It's good to see you." {5}

"It's good to see you, Dong Janggun," he replied. Reaper Moo Young paused, then he stated somberly, "I was very sorry to hear about Ha Sun Nyeo."

I nodded my thanks to him, but did not attempt to speak. He would not expect speech on that topic from me. Moo Young is one person who, I am sure, comes close to understanding precisely how I feel.

Moo Young, also, lost his sister who had been most dear to him, and lost her under exceedingly painful circumstances.

When the Reaper walked up to the bar, Saem the magical tea kettle spirit sidled along the bar top toward him. Stopping near our customer, the kettle spirit blew three white, puffy steam-rings in his direction. I imagine that such must be the tea kettle spirit's equivalent of an appreciative whistle. In cheery tones, Saem remarked, "I do enjoy working here, Dong Janggun. This bar always has the handsomest customers."

Moo Young actually cracked a small grin; not something I remembered seeing him do in the past. He observed, "I suppose that is an advantage of working in a place frequented mainly by immortals. How are you tonight, Saem-ssi?"

"Warm as always," was her perky reply, "and getting warmer thanks to seeing you."

The Reaper's eyes held a sparkle that I think I never saw in them previously. That is no great surprise, since I never previously witnessed him being flirted with by a spirit in a tea kettle.

"It is good to see you again, too," he said, bowing his head to Saem the kettle spirit.

She blew a fourth steam ring that I am fairly certain was shaped like a heart. All she said was, however, "Will you be having your usual?"

"I will, thank you," the Reaper replied.

I reflected, _That is another thing which should cause me no surprise. _It was only natural that Saem would know Moo Young's usual order. The tea kettle spirit has been living on the bar for every night of the three or so months since the Great Sage Son Oh-Gong brought her to me to counteract my magical coldness' deterrent effect on customers. Saem told me now, sounding pleased with herself for knowing the handsome Reaper's order, "Two glasses: one of baekse-ju and one of bokbunja-ju." {6}

Smitten though she clearly was with our customer, Saem the kettle spirit also understood that he and I might wish for some more private conversation. She bade Moo Young a chirpy "Enjoy your drinks," and scooted off along the bar.

With his drinks in front of him, the Reaper smiled rather ruefully and explained to me, "As I see it, these two drinks represent the dual sides of my background. The baekse-ju is for my past as a man. The bokbunja-ju represents my past as a goat. When I was a goat, you see, I developed a very strong liking for bokbunja berries."

The Reaper Moo Young's interlude of several centuries as a celestial goat was a topic I'd had no intention of bringing up. But since he had now introduced the subject himself, I considered that to be an obvious announcement that it was fair game for discussion. As a result, I asked him, "How was it, being a goat?"

"It had its advantages," Moo Young answered. "It is a fairly relaxing existence, having no particular goals in your life beyond eating, climbing trees, and now-and-then being taken for a walk by Yeomra or the Jade Emperor. Sometimes they brought me with them on their fishing outings, although I was usually climbing trees or hunting for berries while they were fishing."

I smiled at those images. "But are you glad to be out of retirement now?" I inquired.

"On the whole, yes. The work of a Reaper involves more interesting challenges than the life of a celestial goat. I was surprised to receive your message," Moo Young continued, after taking a sip from the baekse-ju and then from the berry wine. "Are you coming out of retirement yourself?"

"Not exactly," I told him. "I will be assisting a human who is likely to find himself in many situations involving spirits. If it's all right to keep using your number, I will continue notifying you when I encounter ghosts who ought to be picked up."

Moo Young nodded and took a further appreciative sip from both of his drinks in turn. "Yes, that will be fine. I may not always handle the job myself, but someone from my team will take care of it whenever you notify us. I should tell you," he went on, "there were two ghosts in the building when I visited it. You said in your message there were three?"

I nodded.

"Then the third one must have moved before I arrived. Someone from my team will check back there periodically, to ensure that the third ghost hasn't moved back in, and to deal with it, if it has."

"That would be good, thank you," I said. "What sort of people were the two ghosts you dealt with?"

"An older woman in a light purple sweater and a man in a brown coat."

I thought, _Then that younger woman must have taken my advice and left. She decided that staying here on earth was more important to her than following her leader's orders._

I found I felt inexplicably glad of that, although it puzzled me as to why I should give a damn about that younger woman's ghost.

Was it because, in some obscure way, she'd reminded me of my sister?

_That's absurd, _I told myself. _That ghost is a hundred times less attractive than Ha Sun Nyeo! She looks barely anything like her!_

_Is my loss so all-encompassing that every youngish, straight-haired female person is going to make me think of Ha Sun Nyeo?_

I sighed a little as I gazed around the bar: this warm, welcoming refuge that my sister created. In a mixture of regret and gladness I contemplated the fact that I will never cease being reminded of her.

End Notes:

{1} A folk religion tradition particularly popular in Taiwan is that of the "Eight Infernal Generals" (Ba-Jia-Jiang), spirits who act as guardians for various gods related to death and the underworld, and who play roles in the judging and punishing of ghosts who've committed wrongdoing. Four of these infernal generals have the names of the four seasons. Among the Ba-Jia-Jiang, the Great Winter God is (according to Wikipedia) "responsible for the section of threatening criminals in the interrogation of captured ghosts." Although the Ba-Jia-Jiang are primarily a Taiwanese tradition, not Korean, it seemed logical to me that the figure of this Great Winter God among the Eight Internal Generals may have influenced the creation of the character in _Hwayugi_. Thus I decided that, at some time in the past, _Hwayugi_'s Winter General was a magistrate working under the command of Yeomra, the King of Hell.

{2} In _Hwayugi_, the main character of this story is referred to as "Dong Janggun," a title that translates as "Eastern General." In English-language subtitles and discussion, he is generally referred to as Winter General/General Winter or General Frost. On the Soompi _Hwayugi _forum, p. 102, "Zelda" wrote (2/3/2018): _"General Frost is not a character that is from _Journey to the West [the 16th-century Chinese novel that is the main source material for _Hwayugi_]._ He seems to have come from the nomenclature, General Frost or General Winter, for the Russian Winter which may have helped to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte's forces' invasion of that country … Though having said that, frost which can cause severe damages is a mythological character in a number of cultures. Anyway, according to the Korean wiki, the name General Frost became Dong Janggun (Dong is east. Janggun means general.) in Korean via an initial translation by the Japanese."_

{3} The Wikipedia article on "Korean Given Names" identifies Gyeo-ul (also spelled in English as Gyeo-wool), meaning "winter," as one of the "_Goyueo ireum_ … Korean given names which come from native Korean vocabulary, rather than Sino-Korean roots. These names have been used on occasion for centuries, but they only began to become widespread in South Korea in the late 20th century … Since the late 1970s, the frequency of parents giving their children names that are native Korean words, usually of two syllables, has increased." The article identifies Gyeo-ul as a feminine name.

{4} The character of Dong Janggun's sister, referred to as "Summer Fairy" in English language subtitles and discussion, is known as Ha Sun Nyeo (fairy/magical woman Ha) in the Korean dialogue. Subtitlers may have avoided using her name in the English-language version for fear that viewers would confuse the name of Ha Sun Nyeo with that of Ah Sa Nyeo, the shaman who is a major antagonist in the later episodes of _Hwayugi_.

{5} Fans of _Arang and the Magistrate _(2012) will recognize Reaper Moo Young as an important supporting character from that show.

{6} My research on Korean drinks (thus far, sadly, only conducted online) tells me that baekse-ju or 100-year wine "is a Korean glutinous rice-based fermented alcoholic beverage flavored with a variety of herbs, ginseng most prominent among them" (Wikipedia). The name comes from the claim that drinking this healthful beverage promotes longevity. Bokbunja-ju is "a Korean fruit wine made from wild and/or cultivated bokbunja (Korean black raspberry)." (Wikipedia again.) The drink is said "to promote male sexual stamina." Considering some of the legendary reputation of goats (and slang uses of the term "goat"), I suppose this is a fitting connection with the statement I make in this story that Moo Young's taste for bokbunja dates from his existence as a celestial goat.


	2. Chapter 2: The Haunted Apartment

**Hanbit Winter**

_A Hwayugi/Korean Odyssey Fanfiction_

Chapter Two: The Haunted Apartment

The next evening Lee Han-Joo dropped by the bar again on his way home from work.

At the time he arrived, I was sitting at one of the tables, playing a game of janggi {1} with Saem the kettle spirit. Saem and my sister had played janggi on many a night when the bar's business was sparse. The kettle spirit had become quite adept at bending her spout in order to move the pieces with it, but she laughingly told me that when she and Ha Sun Nyeo were first playing, she'd had a number of mishaps that led to her overbalancing and falling over on the gameboard.

Lee Han-Joo tentatively poked his head around the door, looking as though he could scarcely believe the bar was actually there. It turned out that was precisely what he was thinking. When I had walked to the bar with him and served him the beer he ordered, he confided to me, "I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to find this place. I'd gotten the feeling that it was like someplace in a fairy tale—the sort of place that the hero finds once but can never find again." He gave an embarrassed little smile at confessing something so fanciful. "And this time," he added, "I didn't bring the umbrella with me. I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I could get here on my own."

"You have been accepted here," I informed him. "I don't think you need fear that the place won't appear for you. From this time onward you will always be able to find your way."

My answer may not have entirely reassured him. All the same, he hurried on, "I wanted to tell you in person instead of phoning. I went back to that shopping center today. It feels completely different! As if nothing was ever wrong there at all. So … I want to thank you. And to tell you I accept your offer; that is, if you still want to go through with it. It would be an honor to work with you."

I smiled. "Good," I answered, shaking hands with him across the bar. "It will be my honor to be of assistance to Hanbit Real Estate."

I considered, of course, that we had a contract, from the instant of that hand-shake. But Lee Han-Joo, being human, brought a paper contract to the bar the next day. He and I haggled over my commission. I wanted 1%, but he wouldn't hear of it. I finally allowed him to pressure me into accepting 10% of each sale's profits.

A routine immediately established itself of Lee Han-Joo stopping by the bar every day after work. Only about half of that time does he treat himself to anything alcoholic. I imagine his wife does not want her husband in the habit of drinking every day. In the first week of his visits, whether he was indulging in beer, sparkling water, tea, coffee, or the occasional ice cream, Lee Han-Joo reported to me on the sprucing-up work being done on the shopping center to make it more saleable. He enthused about his kids' latest cute or precocious doings (and, of course, about many doings both precocious and cute), and he showed me an astonishingly large number of videos of his six-year-old daughter singing.

I swiftly began to wonder how long it will be before my business associate starts viewing me as a potential babysitter. But perhaps my persona as bartender will let me off that hook. Lee Han-Joo's wife may not enjoy the concept of her six-year-old and four-year-old hanging out in a bar, any more than she appreciates the prospect of her husband taking up daily drinking.

Just under a week after we made our contract, Lee Han-Joo brought me word of our next haunted property. We made arrangements to go out and see it the next day.

"It must be really worth seeing, too," he remarked, gazing ponderingly at the small scoop of ice cream he was working his way through. A take-away freezer bag of more ice cream was waiting for him to take it home to the family. Since I stopped running my ice cream stand and took ownership of my sister's bar, I have greatly expanded the bar's ice cream menu and its freezer capacity.

"I would take my wife and kids along to see the place," Lee Han-Joo went on, "except that we got the call about it thanks to our … special skill in moving troubled properties. If it weren't for that … it's the sort of place one doesn't get the chance to see every day. An apartment on the 69th floor of Hyperion Tower A! The top floor of the second-tallest building in the country! It ought to be impossible _not _to sell a place like that. All the hot young stars and 'hopeful new talents' should be trampling each other in their race to get 'hold of it, as proof of how cool they are. But apparently the apartment hasn't sold in almost ten years."

Our appointment with the seller's current agent was set for 2:00 in an afternoon of alternating sunlight and cloud, on a day that was shiftily sidling its way from winter into spring. As we endured the usual snarl of traffic to cross the river, got onto Olympic Expressway and made our way around to Mokdong, Lee Han-Joo told me something of the person we were going to meet.

"I was really surprised to hear from her," he admitted. "Park Go-Eun, she's—well, she runs in a different circle than we do—or at least than we _did_, until all those big shots started hanging around my CEO. It's nothing out of the ordinary to see _her_ running around with top stars; I've heard she's the agent who got a lot of them their homes. But I guess she's desperate." With a rueful snort of a laugh, he added, "She'd have to be, to call us. This apartment we're going to see … on the phone yesterday, she sounded like she is actually afraid of it." Lee Han-Joo shook his head. "Aigoo! That place must really be something. I never thought I would hear Park Go-Eun admit she's afraid of anything."

The reputedly formidable Park Go-Eun had arranged to meet us at the pillared formal entrance to the Hyundai Department Store, occupying the bottom many floors of Hyperion Tower A. She was waiting beside the globe statue out in front. After Lee Han-Joo introduced us—with only a very brief hesitation of awkwardness while stating my unusual name—the realtor to the stars led us aside to a slightly more secluded location, by the wall surrounding an ornamental cluster of trees. I noted that while she seemed untroubled by my assumed name, she did cast a bemused look at Jin Seon-Mi's polka-dotted yellow umbrella, which Lee Han-Joo carried as his supernatural realtor's badge of office.

Park Go-Eun proved to be a slender woman of indeterminate age, with a short but expensive-looking haircut and equally pricey-appearing makeup. She wore a vivid fuchsia suit which precisely matched the color of her lipstick. That lipstick, incidentally, looked to me to be the same color as Secretary Ma frequently wears. I wondered if the realtor and the dog demon purchased the same brand.

"Thank you so much for coming," said Park Go-Eun, bowing her head to Lee Han-Joo and then to me. "I was so very sorry to read the news about Jin Seon-Mi."

When Lee Han-Joo had murmured his thanks for her condolence, the other realtor went on, "But you know, if I hadn't recently read Jin Seon-Mi's obituary, I might never have thought of calling you. It was only from having read it, that I was reminded about the … unique reputation your firm enjoys." With a troubled gaze she met Lee Han-Joo's eyes and then mine. I had no doubt that as Lee Han-Joo had said, Park Go-Eun was genuinely afraid.

She asked us, "Do you really believe you can cleanse a place of its evil influences?"

My associate cast a quick, nervous glance at me. But then he replied in confident tones, "We've had a lot of success in that line."

For a few moments she distractedly watched a gaggle of teenaged shoppers make their giggling way toward the Hyundai store's entrance. Then Park Go-Eun murmured grimly, "I don't know if anyone can cleanse the evil from this place."

"What can you tell us about it?" I asked her.

"A former owner committed suicide in there, about ten years ago. He and his wife were the first owners of the apartment; they're the ones who moved in when the building first opened for residents in 2003."

Lee Han-Joo was noticeably staring upward at the towering skyscraper that loomed over us. Guessing what must be on his mind, Park Go-Eun continued with impatience, "No, he didn't jump. The story I've heard is that he hanged himself in the bathroom."

"Go on," said Lee Han-Joo, doing his best to sound untroubled.

"Another couple bought the apartment from his widow, but they only lived there about three months before they decided to sell. The next buyer—the one who still owns it now—is an old college friend of mine. That's the only reason I'm the agent for the place," she added, with surprising force. "If the owner wasn't my friend, I wouldn't have anything to do with it."

"What has been your friend's experience with the apartment?" I prompted.

"She's never even managed to live in it. She told me that all the time she and her boyfriend were moving their things in there, she started feeling worse and worse about herself. More and more depressed. The night they were going to move in—the first night they planned to stay there—she went to Dongho Bridge, instead, when she got off work, and was going to throw herself off! She actually got as far as climbing over the railing, but a passerby noticed her and was able to talk her into coming back."

Lee Han-Joo whispered, "That's horrifying."

"Yes. It is. She's had the apartment on the market for the past nine years. A few times it's come close to selling, but the potential buyers always back out at the last minute. Usually, from what I've heard from their agents, they don't say anything too precise about why they've backed out. They just say the apartment doesn't feel right to them, or sometimes that they've decided they aren't comfortable with heights, after all." The fuchsia-clad realtor gave a short, disdainful laugh. "You'd think they could come up with a better excuse than that. Who begins the process of buying an apartment on the 69th floor if they're afraid of heights?"

Park Go-Eun shook her head and went on, "But the most recent one who almost purchased it …his agent told me that his client said he felt sad whenever he spent time in that apartment. Worse than sad. Apparently he said that after visiting there, he began to think the world would have been a better place if he had never been born."

Lee Han-Joo and I exchanged a glance; a decidedly frightened glance on the part of my human colleague.

"What about you?" I asked Park Go-Eun. "How do you feel in that apartment?"

She gave an unhappy grimace. "Well," she said, "I haven't felt that I should never have been born. But it does make me feel sad, I'll admit. Once or twice in there, I've found myself crying for no reason at all. And believe me," she added in a belligerent tone, "crying is not something I do frequently."

Hastening on from there, Park Go-Eun continued, "Over the past two years, my friend has been trying something new with the place. She's put it on the rental market with Airbnb. For a while we thought that was going to work out. The tourists who rented it were only staying for short periods of time, and they spent most of their time out seeing the sights, not lounging around the apartment. But the most recent rental went terribly wrong. One of men in their group waited until his friends were all asleep one night, and slit his wrists in the bathtub. Luckily one of the others got up, found him and was able to call the ambulance in time. But after that, my friend isn't willing to rent it out again. She doesn't want the responsibility for what might happen to anyone else in there."

Park Go-Eun sighed angrily. "If it were a stand-alone house, I'd say we should burn the place to the ground. Maybe that would cleanse it. But I guess people wouldn't appreciate it if we burned down Hyerion Tower A and the Hyundai store."

Lee Han-Joo and I made agreeing answers to that statement. Sounding suddenly worried, our fellow realtor added, "Frankly, I'm not even sure I should allow the two of you to go in there."

"Thank you," I reassured her, "but we should be all right for a brief visit. We ought to experience it for ourselves in order to determine what must be done about it."

Unsurprisingly, considering that our destination was the 69th floor, the elevator ride to the haunted apartment seemed exceptionally lengthy. That impression was probably heightened by stressful anticipation. Although Lee Han-Joo was doing his best to control his nerves, he still spent that ride with a look as though we were heading to our execution.

Park Go-Eun led us to the apartment's door and unlocked it. Then she said, "I'll wait in the hallway. I've spent more than enough time in that place. Please," she continued, with sudden intensity, "don't spend long in there."

"We won't," I promised. "Just long enough to learn what we have to."

I had expected we would find a fairly cut-and-dried case. I'd assumed the ghost of the suicidal first owner was at the root of the problems; that his unhappiness was so strong, he was sharing it with everyone who spent time there. But we had barely stepped inside the haunted apartment before I realized something else was going on.

Lee Han-Joo walked in first, for form's sake as the owner of Hanbit Real Estate. As long as he was within sight of Park Go-Eun, he'd managed to keep a more-or-less calm demeanor. But as soon as the door shut behind us, he desperately clutched Jin Seon-Mi's umbrella up against his heart. I followed him through the entry hallway to stand at his side, gazing at the room that opened out before us.

The apartment was a spacious one. Likely it seemed more spacious than it would if someone were regularly living there, thanks to the scanty furnishings that provided the minimum level of comfort needed to rent out the place through Airbnb. The far wall of the living and dining area was formed almost entirely of windows.

But despite what should have seemed an airy expanse of openness, I was struck by the sensation that this was an entire apartment swathed in fog.

When I really concentrated, I could see it. It looked like fog, all right; thick, clammy and choking. But I could only see it when I forced myself to, or when I glanced at it from exactly the right angle.

Normally, cold is never a problem for me. I am cold myself, and the colder my surroundings, the stronger my powers grow.

But the cold of that fog felt like something different. That cold was damp, with an air of mustiness and decay. I felt that it was seeping into my lungs. If I stayed there long enough, I felt that my lungs would fill up with it and drown me.

"Do you see any ghosts?" Lee Han-Joo asked me, not quite managing to hold his voice steady.

"No," I said, "I don't see any ghosts yet. But I do see something."

Lee Han-Joo did not ask me for further information.

He and I turned left to examine the kitchen, which felt neither worse nor better than the rest of the place. We took a tour through the living and dining room, where I noticed that my colleague maintained a respectful distance from the windows with their skyscraper's eye view. Then we headed to the right, toward the three bedrooms and the bathroom.

In room after room, the ghost did not appear. But the fog was there with us, shifting in and out of my vision. Though I did not always see it, I felt as though the fog took the form of arms which were wrapping themselves around me and stroking my skin with moist, rotting fingers.

I had thought the first owner's ghost might be in the bathroom, since that was apparently where he had ended his life. In there, I still saw nothing of the ghost. But the fog felt as thick to me as a chill and putrid version of the steam from a shower.

Lee Han-Joo said to me in a miniscule, frightened voice, "We really need to get out of here."

"Yes," I answered him distantly. "We do."

I caught sight of our faces in the mirror above the sink. Both of us looked pale, staring-eyed and terrified—the demon just as terrified as the human.

And I felt, along with the damp that seemed to be creeping into my bones, a deep and unbearable realization about myself.

_It's my fault, _I thought. _All of it. So many of the disasters we have gone through are utterly my fault._

_I was wrong all along. I never should have asked that shaman to house my sister's soul in my body. I should have accepted my sister's death a thousand years ago. If I had bowed to fate, if I had allowed Heaven's will to take its course, if I had let her go … then I would never have had a contract with that heartless bitch of a shaman. I would not have been forced to help her. I would not have aided her in fighting my friends and nearly causing the end of the world._

I heard Lee Han-Joo say in a strangled, almost sobbing tone, "It's even worse than before."

I blinked at that. With effort I shoved my self-loathing thoughts into a far-removed region of my mind.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He spoke in short, broken phrases. I realized he was actually sobbing. "A while ago … there was some misunderstanding … a lot of people started saying horrible things about me on social media. Really cruel, painful things. Calling me a deadbeat dad … saying I was only trying to use my daughter so I could become famous … and I started hating myself. Feeling I was no good. Thinking I was worthless. This feels … the way I felt then. Only it's worse. So much worse. I feel like I must have been crazy … to ever think I was worth anything at all …"

"Stop it!" I cried out to him, reaching out and grabbing both his shoulders. "Don't think like that. Don't let it make you think like that. There's an evil spirit in here, and it's causing us to feel this way. It's doing this to feed off our pain."

"All … all right," stammered Lee Han-Joo, his hurt-filled gaze again making me think of a pleading dog. "So can we please get out of here?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, we have to." But even though I said it, my feet still did not make any move.

It was the human who managed to move first. I saw fierceness blend with the fear in his eyes, and he gave an incoherent growl. Then he suddenly snapped open Jin Seon-Mi's umbrella, thrusting it in front of him like a shield.

Lee Han-Joo shouted, "Then let's go!" He rushed through the door to the bathroom with the umbrella held ahead of him. I stared, amazed, for an instant; then I followed my human colleague. Now and then I could see the half-visible fog break in waves against the umbrella and ricochet off to either side.

Just before we made our escape out the front door, I saw the ghost I had been looking for since we entered the apartment. He was standing by the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows, though I'd seen no sign of him when we were in that room before. He seemed a youngish man, short-haired, wearing jeans and a denim shirt. I could see little of his face. He was gazing out at the blue sky and the scudding gray clouds, or perhaps at the view of southwestern Seoul that lay spread out before him. He seemed to take no notice of Lee Han-Joo or me, or of the other entity in that apartment.

When we had reached the hallway, Park Go-Eun wasted no time in locking the door behind us. She stared at the two of us, and I wondered if we looked anywhere near as horrible as I felt.

Grim-faced, she told us, "I was about to decide I should go in there after you." Then she cast a sardonic glance at Lee Han-Joo's shield-umbrella. She inquired, "Did the umbrella help?"

Lee Han-Joo blushed crimson. But he said defiantly, "Yes," before shutting the umbrella again with an emphatic thwack.

My colleague looked back and forth between Park Go-Eun and me. With a visible shudder, he asked, "How does anyone spend any time in there at all?"

Park Go-Eun pointed out, "It must affect different people differently. Perhaps it has its strongest effect on the people who have the most sadness in them already."

"That does make sense," I agreed, although the theory was not very encouraging about either Lee Han-Joo's state of mind or mine.

"So," our fellow realtor went on, with a touch of gallows humor, "I suppose I can't convince you to take this place off my hands?"

Lee Han-Joo was about to answer, but I intervened. "No," I said, "we will be happy to take on the job of representing the seller."

"We will?" Lee Han-Joo yelped, at the same instant as Park Go-Eun exclaimed, "You will?"

Pulling himself a bit back together, Lee Han-Joo observed to me, "Forgive me for saying this, Gyeo-ul-ssi, but you didn't seem to be doing any better in there than I was."

"No," I answered, "that's true. I wasn't. But it's all a question of knowing the right experts. I have an associate who can accomplish what needs to be done here. You two can go do the paperwork to make Hanbit Real Estate the agent for this property now, if it fits with your schedules. Let me know when it's completed, Lee Han-Joo-ssi, and I'll set about contacting my associate."

Both Lee Han-Joo and Park Go-Eun were eyeing me as though I was out of my mind. Finally, the realtor in the fuchsia suit shook her head and sighed. She said, "I feel like I'm leading lambs to the slaughter. If either of you or your 'associate' kill yourselves over this place, I'm going to feel like it's my fault."

"Please don't worry," I told her. "I know what we're getting ourselves into. And my associate will handle the cleansing of this place with no difficulties at all."

End Note

{1} Janggi is the traditional Korean chess, derived from the same source as the Chinese xiangqi.


	3. Chapter 3: The Cleansing and the Ghost

**Hanbit Winter**

_A Hwayugi/Korean Odyssey Fanfiction_

Chapter Three: The Cleansing and the Ghost

Ma Wang the Bull Demon King expressed no doubts on his ability to deal with the haunted apartment, when I explained the situation to him later that afternoon. But then, expressing doubts as to his abilities is not a habit that Ma Wang frequently indulges in.

When I told him of the evil spirit that needed removing, I also asked that he leave the ghost there unharmed, if he could. It seemed to me that the spirit and the ghost were two different issues. If it was in any way possible, I wanted the chance to speak with the ghost before deciding his fate.

Ma Wang confidently promised me success in both aspects of the problem. And just as Park Go-Eun had worried about us earlier, now I worried a little over whether I was getting Ma Wang into a conflict which would prove bigger than he thought it was.

_But, _I assured myself, _Ma Wang endured 88 lifetimes-worth of suffering in a single night. He can handle a fight with a sadness-sucking spirit. He is not a Demon King for nothing._

So at a little past 11:00 that night a group of three intensely interested spectators stood together on the roof of Hyperion Tower B, staring upward at the taller sister tower and specifically at the windows of one apartment on the 69th floor.

The interested spectators were myself, the dog demon Secretary Ma, and Elder Soo Bo Ri, Heaven's representative for our district.

Heaven's Representative had not been invited to our little watch party. He had simply found out what was going on in whatever mysterious heavenly way he usually learns about doings in his jurisdiction.

I knew when Ma Wang made his assault on the apartment, thanks to Secretary Ma giving a quiet growl and announcing "He's in." But I would soon have known it anyway, because moments later the haunted apartment's windows began blazing with light.

The white light that I knew must belong to Ma Wang raced about beyond those windows at barely conceivable speed. Now and then I saw amorphous, dark, cloudy forms against the light, that had to be the sadness-spirit's fog.

I thought, _If the Great Sage Son Oh-Gong were here watching this, he would probably make some comment about a bull in a china shop._

"Oh!" exclaimed Elder Soo Bo Ri, sounding rather as if he were watching a fireworks show. "Will you look at that!"

The sight was certainly worth looking at. Seemingly without causing any physical damage to the windows, the dark fog suddenly came surging out of them and soared up toward the sky. Charging just behind it came the painfully vivid, fiery form of a gigantic white bull.

The growls of Secretary Ma, standing beside me, were now anything but quiet. She kept jerking forward, clearly about to hurl herself into the air and fly to Ma Wang's assistance but always stopping at the last instant. She could not do otherwise, of course, because her master had ordered her not to interfere. Her fingers kept convulsively clawing the air, and I wondered if later in the night she would need to go out and get into a dog fight to release some of her aggression.

The Bull Demon King chased the spirit cloud onto the roof of Tower A. Briefly the mass of dark and the searing white bull raced in circles around the roof. The not-quite-respectful thought occurred to me that just now Ma Wang looked less like a bull and more like the universe's largest terrier chasing the universe's largest rat.

The sadness-spirit suddenly plunged off the roof again, but the Bull Demon King was right on its tail. Again the chase took the form of a circle, as the dark mass and the kingly bull sped in a furious orbit around the top floors of Hyperion Tower A.

"Dear me," remarked Elder Soo Bo Ri, although he sounded rather delighted, "what _is _anyone who glances out their windows going to make of that?"

Suddenly I realized that the fog was getting smaller. Bit after bit of it writhed and swirled and then vanished from sight, in a puff of black smoke that was somehow visible to demon eyes in spite of the distance between us and the shrouding darkness of the night. Puff after puff of the black smoke disappeared. At last none of it was left.

The Bull Demon King vanished in his own puff of smoke, only to immediately reappear on Tower B's roof beside us. He was in his standard human-like form, and he looked only slightly the worse for wear. For the first moment or two that he was there with us, his eyes still glowed red. Then that final trace of his true nature vanished. Saying a trifle breathlessly, "Well, that's that, then," he more-or-less casually sat down on one of the large metal box-structures that house arcane roof-top machinery.

Secretary Ma hastened to her master's side, her high heels' staccato clops bursting through the air like artillery-fire. Normally Ma Wang might have gestured her away—at least for as long as the other two of us were watching—but right now it seemed he was too worn out from his fight to object to her ministrations.

Somewhere in a pocket of her trimly tailored black-and-white striped dress, Secretary Ma had stashed a packet of antiseptic wipes. She produced this now and set about cleaning the various scratches that Ma Wang had acquired on his face, hands and neck.

"Dong Janggun," Ma Wang said to me, with an ever-so-slightly pained smile, "it's no big deal, but just for future reference: when you come to me about spirits you'd like me to remove, it will be helpful if you let me know ahead of time that there are more than one of them."

"I apologize, Ma Wang-nim," I told him. "I didn't know there were more than one. All I could see of it was a fog."

"In fact," put in Elder Soo Bo Ri, "what you dealt with up there was a cluster demon. Or a hive demon; the terms are interchangeable. What probably happened is that one evil spirit was attracted by the unhappiness of the man who killed himself, and it continued to feed off the ghost's unhappiness after the man was dead. That attracted further evil spirits. They joined together, fed off the ghost's sadness to sustain themselves when no other prey was around, and built on each other's strength, thus becoming stronger and stronger. As the cluster spirit grew stronger, the people who came into its sphere became more badly affected by it—at least the people who had enough of their own sadness to be susceptible to its influence. And the longer a group of spirits like that remains together, the more they come to act like one entity. So Dong Janggun isn't to blame for not realizing there were more than one."

It occurred to me that the pocket in which Secretary Ma had carried the packet of wipes was probably a magic pocket. In that case, it was not surprising that the wipes-packet had fit in there; she could be carrying anything inside that pocket, from a complete first aid kit, to a laptop computer, to a warhorse in full battle-armor. Secretary Ma returned the packet of wipes to this pocket, produced from it a brush and a comb, and went to work restoring Ma Wang's hair to its usual impeccable appearance.

Meanwhile, looking narrowly at Soo Bo Ri, Ma Wang said, "Now, wait a minute. When you say that a 'cluster spirit' acts like one entity, I hope you aren't telling me that thing is going to count as just one spirit on my record!"

"Well," Heaven's Representative answered in obvious embarrassment, evading the gaze of the Bull Demon King, "cluster demons do typically count as one for the purposes of official paperwork …"

"Not _this_ official paperwork," Ma Wang snapped, stabbing one finger toward Elder Soo Bo Ri. "I haven't been acting like a demon bull carousel animal, chasing evil spirits 'round and 'round a skyscraper, for this night's work to earn me just one point on my path to becoming a deity! There had to be … twenty of those spirits, at least. Or maybe thirty."

Soo Bo Ri gave a forced laugh and said with overdone cheeriness, "Well, maybe I can exercise a bit of leeway and count it as ten spirits."

"Fifteen," Ma Wang riposted. "I'm not settling for less than half the actual number."

"Now, now," the Elder pointed out, "you don't even know there were thirty. You're just guessing."

"All right, then, maybe there were forty. Sure had to spend a long time up there, chasing them around and getting whiplash. In fact, maybe I should sue the Heavens for a work-related injury. Ow, my neck. Secretary Ma, go fetch me one of those neck braces."

With another strained laugh, Soo Bo Ri said again, "Now, now! You don't want to do that. After all, we don't how long it may be before the Great Sage Son Oh-Gong returns from the Underworld. You don't want him to come back unexpectedly and catch you wearing an unsightly neck brace; he'd never let you hear the end of it. He'd be singing 'Ma Wang Dances Neck Brace Style' until we all want to stick him back under a mountain."

Ma Wang gave a predatory grin and said, "_I _want to stick him under a mountain every day, anyway. But don't worry about it, he'll get bored with that song before you know it. Even celestial monkeys have really short attention spans."

Frowning thoughtfully, Secretary Ma asked, "Could the spirits really have been feeding off one ghost's sadness for all the time when no one else was in the apartment? It doesn't seem like that would be enough to sustain them. They should have drained that ghost dry, before now."

Heaven's Representative pointed out, "Souls can be capable of just about endless sadness. But it is possible that the cluster did some feeding in neighboring apartments. They wouldn't be as strong elsewhere, outside of the apartment they'd made their headquarters, so they probably didn't drive anyone outside that apartment to suicide. But they certainly may have made an impact in other apartments, or even in the department store downstairs. That would be an interesting question to research."

"Well, then!" Ma Wang declared. "If I've saved this whole part of town from these sadness-suckers, there's no way it should count as just one point on my record!"

"Well, well," said Soo Bo Ri, working his way toward a tactical retreat, "fifteen was the number you said? I imagine I can fiddle the paperwork enough to justify that amount." He blatantly changed the subject by whipping out his phone. "Ooh, look at that. Posts about your fight are popping up all over the place already. 'Unexplained lights atop Hyperion Tower A.' 'What caused the Hyperion Tower ghost lights? Lightning? Saint Elmo's Fire? Aliens?'"

Ma Wang snorted a laugh and added, "Or a bull suffering from a serious pain in the neck. Fifteen, you say? I guess I can live with that."

"Splendid!" exclaimed Soo Bo Ri. "Then let's celebrate your accomplishment with a drink at the bar." He glanced at me and added, "That is, if Dong Janggun doesn't mind us descending on him."

"You three go on ahead," I replied. "The bar will be open for you. I'll join you there shortly. Ma Wang-nim, did you happen to notice whether that ghost was still in the apartment when you left it?"

The Bull Demon King shrugged. "I didn't go out of my way to get rid of him. If he managed to get between me and any of those cluster-punks, I can't be responsible for what may have happened to him."

"I understand," I said. "I'm going to go look for him; I feel I ought to talk with him, if I can. You go ahead; please enjoy yourselves."

As soon as my three fellow immortals had bid me goodbye and vanished, I vanished myself, to re-solidify inside the haunted apartment.

As frequently happens with supernatural battles, tonight's conflict seemed to have left no trace on the physical environment. The minimal furniture seemed untouched. Nothing looked broken or burned. But one difference did send relief surging through me, even though I had expected it. I felt not the slightest hint of that sadness-summoning fog.

I don't know whether I expected this or not. But the ghost was standing exactly where I'd seen him before: by a living room window, gazing out at the night.

This time, though, the ghost's behavior was different. After some moments, he seemed to notice my presence. He slowly turned, blinking as though he had just woken up, and looked at me. Distantly he said, "Hello."

I walked over to him. His appearance was that of a man probably somewhere in this thirties. His untucked blue denim shirt hung loosely over his jeans, and I noticed that the shirt was misbuttoned. He was barefoot. The strong, handsome features of his face seemed faintly familiar to me, as though at some point in the past I might have seen him on television.

"Hello," I replied to him. "Have you noticed anything of what's been going on in this apartment?"

Again he blinked at me and took some while before answering. "I haven't noticed much," he said, his voice still sounding rather vague. "There hasn't been anyone here very often, has there? I guess I haven't been paying much attention. I've spent most of my time looking out the window."

There seemed little point in trying to explain to him that a battle royal between a hive of sadness spirits and the Bull Demon King had just taken place in his living room. I told myself perhaps it would become reasonable to tell him about it sometime later, if he remained in this world for long enough.

With a mental grimace I thought that his vagueness might be the result of the cluster spirits feeding on him. Perhaps they had kept him, throughout this decade since his death, in something like a state of suspended animation. My thoughts made the unpleasant comparison of those spirits with a web that teemed with spiders. The ghost, I thought, had been the trapped fly from which the spiders had ever-so-slowly been sucking the juices.

But the web and the spiders were all of them gone now. Maybe now the fly could have a fresh chance.

I asked him, "Do you want to tell me about how you came to be here?"

Apparently, he did. This time there was a far briefer pause before he answered.

"I'm an actor," the ghost began. He gave a small, bitter smile and corrected himself, "I _was _an actor. I did all right in my career, for a while. I had lead roles in some dramas and in one movie. I was a regular participant on one variety show. But … I was always afraid that I wouldn't be good enough. That I'd make a wrong step somewhere along the way. That I'd make some mistake, and directors wouldn't keep casting me. So …"

He glanced out the window for a moment. I feared his attention might be drifting away from me. But he swiftly looked back to me again and continued his story.

"So I got involved with drugs. Just to relax, you know, at first. To ease off a little of the pressure. But the more involved I got, naturally, the harder everything was. It got more difficult to turn in the performances I needed to. It got more and more likely that I really was going to fail.

"Eventually I was arrested, for possession, use and trafficking of illegal drugs. My sentence got commuted to community service. I got another role on a drama … just a supporting role, but it was a good, solid one. A good opportunity to prove I still had what it takes. I promised myself I'd be a good example for others who had the same problems as I did. I'd be a good role model; I'd prove that after you fall down, you _can _pick yourself back up again."

With a sorrowing smile, the actor's ghost shook his head. "But I wasn't good enough. I fell back on the drugs again. After I was arrested the second time, I served nine months in prison. And when I got out …"

Distant though his voice and his gaze were, I knew I was not going to lose him now. Nothing was going to stop the ghost from telling his story.

"That time, I knew I was finished. No one was going to hire me again. My wife's job paid well enough to support us, but how I could I live with that? How could I just stay at home when she went out to work every day? But I couldn't get work as an actor … couldn't do what I _ought _to do. Couldn't do what I love. I'd have to get some ordinary job … doing what? Pumping gas? Stocking shelves at a grocery store? And I couldn't stand seeing the pity on my wife's face, day after day after day …"

The actor gave another bitter smile and met my eyes. "So I decided to end it all. To make it all stop. Only I failed at that, too, didn't I? Because here I still am." {1}

"Do you want to leave?" I asked him quietly. "Are you ready to move on?"

The ghost's connection to reality was clearly growing stronger. Now he was alert and aware enough to be curious. He tilted his head as he studied me, and asked, "Are you a Reaper? I thought they always wear all black. But maybe that's only in the dramas."

"No," I told him, with a smile. "No, it's not just in dramas; they do wear all black. No, I'm not a Reaper, but I am in touch with them. I can call them and have them take you, if that's what you want."

He frowned a little. "I don't know. I'm not sure. It's stupid, isn't it?" he added. "Why did I kill myself, if I wasn't ready to leave? But … now I feel like there's something I still want to do. Like there's more I want to accomplish."

I suggested, "Maybe you still want to act again."

He gave a brief laugh and a smile that seemed genuinely amused, although it still held a strong element of bitterness. "Well, good luck to me on that, then!" he exclaimed. "Do you know of many casting opportunities for ghosts?"

"No," I admitted, "but … bear with me a while, please," I requested of him. "I'm … just starting to invent this plan while we're talking …"

I knew I could well be just grasping at straws. But the more I thought of it, the more the idea seemed to have some genuine potential. I thought there really might be some kind of chance for this ghost to use his acting skills again—and to use them in some more meaningful way than possessing a contestant on Ma Wang's talent show and having the demon king tell him "You pass."

"I can't guarantee anything," I told the ghost. "But, you see, I have an associate who is working on a campaign to be made a deity. Some of his points toward that goal, he earns by banishing evil spirits. It's just occurred to that there might be times when it would be useful for him to have a ghost on his side … one who could play different roles, perhaps to lure other spirits into situations in which he could vanquish them more easily. It wouldn't be the same as television work," I continued, "but perhaps it might give you something of what you're looking for."

The actor thought about all of that. Still looking deep in contemplation, he said, "I don't see any reason why I should turn your suggestion down. Whatever happens will have to be more interesting than gazing out the window."

"You will need to leave this apartment," I informed him, "so it can be sold. But I have somewhere else you can go. I run a bar. You can stay there. You'll be welcome there as long as you wish, while we're waiting to learn if this acting idea bears any fruit."

Again the actor's ghost cast me a quizzical look. "Are you sure about that?" he asked. "Don't you think it's likely that having a ghost in the place would … ruin the atmosphere for your customers?"

"You don't need to worry about that. My bar tends to attract very out-of-the-ordinary customers."

A slight shock hit me as I realized this must be the first time I had spoken of the bar as "mine"—rather than saying it was my sister's.

I hastened on. "Besides, my own atmosphere is colder than that of any ghost. We have magic at the bar that counteracts my coldness; I'm sure it will work to balance out your presence, too."

He thought again. Then he gave a smile that seemed to hold no bitterness at all.

"Then, yes," he said. "Thank you. I will accept your offer."

I held out my hand to him and said, "Then let's go."

The ghost and I reappeared outside the bar's front entrance. I held the door open for him and bowed.

"Please, come in," I invited him. "Feel welcome here, and stay as long as you want."

I chose as the ghost's new home a booth with a comfortable cushioned bench and a view out one of the front windows—although, from certain comments he had made, I thought he might be giving up his hobby of staring out of windows.

Ma Wang, Elder Soo Bo Ri and Secretary Ma were sitting at one of the long tables in the center of the room. They watched me getting the ghost settled into his booth, but beyond various raised eyebrows at me, they did not make any comments.

I judged it was too soon to introduce the actor to them yet. Certainly it was too soon for me to tell Ma Wang my somewhat half-baked idea about him being able to utilize the skills of a ghostly actor in his deity-points campaign.

But one person, I thought, might well prove good company for my new guest. I asked the actor if he felt up to meeting anyone else tonight, to which he smiled ruefully and said, "Why not? Anyone else's company has got to be better than my own."

So I went over to the bar and told Saem the kettle spirit the story of our new tenant. I asked her if she would be willing to spend some time with him.

"Why not?" was her cheery reply. "Warm and happy company like mine may be just the thing he needs to help him."

That, I knew, was not a foregone conclusion. There are times when happy people are entirely not the ones whom unhappy people should spend time with. But on this occasion, the gamble paid off.

I carried Saem over to the actor's table and introduced them. Whenever I looked over at them, after that, the ghost and the kettle spirit seemed to be enjoying a lively and engrossing conversation.

Once I noticed that Saem was blowing steam rings, and the actor was trying out his ghostly powers by experimenting with blowing the rings away. Eventually, I saw, they got quite a complex-looking game going, blowing the steam rings around in intricate patterns.

As I watched them from across the room, I was far from sure that I understood the rules of the game they had developed. But that, I told myself, didn't matter. What mattered was that they understood them.

* * *

The next evening, Lee Han-Joo stopped by the bar after work as usual. This time, he ordered tea, and he confided to me, "After that place we visited yesterday, I think if I started drinking anything alcoholic, I'd probably never stop."

I told him, "I want to thank you for what you did in there. You are the one who got us out. I knew that we had to leave, but it was you who got us moving. Thank you."

Lee Han-Joo beamed at the praise, although he clearly felt embarrassed about accepting it. "Well," he said, "maybe it was partly me and partly the umbrella." He took a hefty swig of his tea and then asked me, "So what's our next step with that place? Have you contacted your friend about it yet? Do you know when he'll be able to do the … cleansing ceremony, or whatever?"

I said, "He's already done it."

"He's what!"

"I contacted him yesterday afternoon, and he performed the ceremony last night. I have every confidence that the malign influences we felt in that apartment are gone."

Lee Han-Joo did not yet look convinced. "As easy as that?" he asked.

"Like I told you," I said, "it's simply a matter of knowing the right professional for the job. Why don't you and I go there tomorrow, and check to make certain the work was completed? Although I have no doubt," I went on, "that the apartment will feel as clean and healthy as if nothing was ever wrong in there at all."

"Who would have thought it?" Lee Han-Joo murmured wonderingly, shaking his head. "Maybe I'll get the chance to show my wife and kids the view from the 69th floor, after all."

My colleague's mention of the apartment's view caused me to glance over at the booth where the ghost of the actor was sitting. He was alone again, now; Saem was doing her usual late afternoon/early evening shift of sitting on the bar, to warm the place up for our evening customers. Despite his expressed new disdain for gazing out of windows, the actor was looking out the window now, people-watching the hurrying passersby—most of whom were not enough attuned to the uncanny to even see that the bar was there.

I said to Lee Han-Joo, "There is something I'd like to ask you to do."

"I'll be happy to help you out," he said. "What is it?"

I delved into my ice cream freezers and put together a bowl laden with scoops of three flavors that struck me as being likely to be the ghostly actor's favorites. I scooted the bowl across the bar toward Lee Han-Joo and then pointed out to him the actor's booth.

"You see that booth over there? There's a ghost sitting at it who is in need of an offering. Please take this ice cream and offer it to him, just the way you would give it at a memorial altar."

I had been thinking of doing something like this for most of the day, but I'd needed to wait until a living human was on hand to perform the actual offering. Only an offering given by a living human will ever do any good for a fellow human's soul.

Lee Han-Joo was casting me an exceptionally wide-eyed stare. However, I can see no need to hide from him everything that goes on around him. I thought, _If he is going to continue as the CEO of an agency which specializes in haunted properties, he had better get used to oddness popping up in every facet of his life. _

When I didn't say any more, or end my request with, "Just kidding," Lee Han-Joo gingerly took the bowl of ice cream in his hands. Crazy though he must have thought this task was, he carried the bowl across the room, bowed before the actor's booth, set the bowl down on the table and murmured an offering prayer, just as I had asked him to.

Every bit as bemused by all this as was Lee Han-Joo, was the actor's ghost.

He had stopped gazing out the window as the living man approached. Now he stared in amazement at this praying stranger and the bowl of ice cream. But his amazement was nothing compared with what he would be feeling next.

Lee Han-Joo finished his prayer, bowed again and then awkwardly turned away. He glanced to me for confirmation that he had done well, and I nodded and distantly smiled. But I was paying very little real notice to him. Instead, my attention was focused on the actor.

What Lee Han-Joo could not see was that as he had finished the prayer, a seeming second bowl of ice cream appeared on the table, beyond the first. It was, of course, the offering's spiritual form: a serving of ice cream identical to the physical form which gave it being, except that _this _ice cream, the ghost could actually eat.

The ghostly actor reached his hand ever-so-tentatively toward the second bowl, then gaped in utter astonishment as he realized he could truly touch it and feel it. His questioning glance raced over toward me, across the room.

I smiled and nodded encouragement to him. Hesitatingly, almost in fear, the actor took the spoon, scooped up a tiny sliver of ice cream, and brought it to his mouth.

As glad as I was to see him have this experience, I also felt intensely sorry for the man. To think that he had been dead for ten years, and this was obviously the first time he had ever partaken of an offering!

I realized he must never have experienced any of the offerings his family and friends had made for the comfort of his soul. Partaking of his own offerings was another aspect of normal ghostly existence that those sadness-eating spirits had stolen from him.

* * *

Much later that night, when the ghost, the kettle spirit and I were the only people in the bar, Jeo Pal-Gye the pop idol and pig demon arrived to join us.

Pal-Gye was clad in one of his typically striking outfits, this one involving a fluffy, peach-colored sweater of which the collar, cuffs and hemline seemed to be made of an attached, light blue feather boa. But his mood was nowhere near as bright as his clothing. From the half-sorrowful expression of longing on his face, I had no doubt of what person was in his thoughts.

As he settled onto a bar stool, Pal-Gye glanced around the room and asked in not-very-interested tones, "Who's the ghost playing janggi with the tea kettle?"

That was an accurate description of the current goings-on in the actor ghost's booth. I had carried Saem over to visit the ghost again when she declared that the bar was now warm enough for our customers. Shortly afterward, Saem and the ghost called me over and asked me to bring them the janggi set.

Since then, I had been enjoying watching their game, off and on. The actor had to tell Saem his moves so she could move the pieces for him, since he, as a ghost, could not manipulate objects of the physical world.

"He's a guest of mine," I answered Pal-Gye. "Possibly a permanent guest."

The pig demon nodded and went back to gazing into the distance. "You know," he mused, as his thoughts took spoken form, "I keep telling myself things are better for her, this way. She doesn't have to worry anymore about becoming an evil spirit, or about her body rotting away. And she has probably been reunited with her mother. I hope she has, anyway. So it's all for the best. But I still wish …"

Suddenly Pal-Gye shook his head and cast me a brittle smile. "Give me something to drink, please," he said. "Just whatever feels right to you. Surprise me."

I set about mixing a drink for him. As I did so, I was thinking of the photo Alice had sent to him, and that he had since sent on to me. It was a selfie that my sister had taken with three friends: with Bu Ja the bewitched corpse, the Jade Dragon prince, and Jeo Pal-Gye. And of the four of them in the photo, Pal-Gye was the only one who was still in this world now.

I thought of that photo. I wondered if Pal-Gye and I would ever be able to endure having a framed version of that picture here at the bar. I wondered if, or when, seeing it would bring us more happiness than pain.

I slid the completed drink over to Jeo Pal-Gye, and found myself staring at it in puzzlement as I did so.

That drink, in a martini glass, looked like a startlingly accurate replica of the pig demon's sweater. The color of the liquid that gleamed in it was the same light peach as the sweater, and pale blue colored sugar coated the rim of the glass.

The most startling thing was that I had no memory of preparing that drink. Not of picking out the glass, not of mixing its contents, not of selecting and applying the colored sugar.

Jeo Pal-Gye had told me to surprise him, but I had wound up surprising myself.

_How have I mixed a drink without remembering that I've done it?_

_What's in it? Is it even halfway drinkable?_

I would learn the answer to that last question soon enough. The pig demon took a sip—and stared at me with huge, astonished eyes.

He asked me in a whisper, "Did Ha Sun Nyeo leave you her drinks recipes?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this tastes exactly like the drink she would have made for me. She would do that, you know: if you didn't order a specific drink, she'd make you whatever she felt was right for you at the time. And it always _was_ right. It was always just exactly what you needed it to be. This drink is like that. It … makes me feel more happy than sad. It makes me feel … the way I used to feel when Bu Ja would smile at me."

He blinked away the tears that were obviously welling in his eyes, and took another sip. A wondering smile spread across his face while one tear crept unnoticed down his cheek.

I, meanwhile, was feeling thoroughly stunned.

It made sense, I told myself, that my sister would have created drinks in that way. It is the same way I tend to serve ice cream. Unless someone makes a specific order, I just serve them whatever flavor or mix of flavors seems right for them. And from people's reactions as they eat the ice cream I have given them, it does seem that my choices have been the right ones to make.

_But, by the Heavens_, my thoughts protested now, _at least I know what flavors of ice cream I choose; what cone or bowl I am using; what decorations I add. I don't send my brain away on vacation and come back to discover I've prepared an ice cream sundae that I know nothing about!_

My hands were suddenly trembling.

I wondered wildly, _Who made that drink for Jeo Pal-Gye? _

_Was it me? Or was it my sister?_

With a stabbing pang of both fear and hope, I wondered if the same thing would happen again. Could I once again create a drink without my mind's conscious involvement in the process—this time not a drink for Jeo Pal-Gye, but one for myself?

I thought that the tension which was causing my hands to tremble might prevent me from sending my mind away. Gazing down at my hands, I willed them to stillness, and I pictured them as my sister's hands, instead of mine. I imagined her black nail polish there on my nails, and pretended longingly that this was a night like any of our nights for over a thousand years. I threw my soul into the fantasy that she was here to take over our body for the night, that I was settling down to sleep, and that in the morning Ha Sun Nyeo would regale me with her tales of all the interesting or amusing things that happened during this night.

How I wished that my imaginings were true! But for this moment I did not allow myself to be trapped in the reality of my grief. I sent my mind flying free, and left my body to whoever might be there to control it.

When my mind returned to my present place and time, another drink sat on the bar before me.

This drink was also in a martini glass, one of the gold-filigreed set that I remembered Ha Sun Nyeo happily showing to me a few months ago. Those glasses' decorations carried on the motif of the decorative panels behind the bar, with their golden swirls in the patterns of phoenix tails and a many-branched tree.

The color of the drink was gold as well, and it reminded me irresistibly of my sister. There was no way it could _not _remind me of her, as its gold continued the theme that was visible around us everywhere in this beautiful haven she'd created: in the paint of the wall-moldings, in the wallpaper, in the chandelier, in the many candles' flames.

Across the bar from me, Jeo Pal-Gye was eyeing me curiously, with a tiny smile. I could not bring myself to smile at him in return. Instead, I took a small, cautious sip of the drink.

_It's not possible, _I thought. _It isn't possible!_

_There is no possible way that a drink can speak._

And yet, that was how I felt. Tasting that drink—its taste warm and welcoming, with a whisper-touch of sweetness—made me feel precisely the way I felt when I heard my sister's voice.

_My sister, _I thought. _My lovely little sister. _

_Is it possible that you are still here with me?_

I saw Jeo Pal-Gye smiling at me in sympathy. I realized there were tears on my face.

"Please excuse me," I told the pig demon abruptly. "I'm going outside for a few minutes."

Clutching the glass like a talisman, I rushed out through the side door and into the alley behind the bar.

The stars above were as beautiful as always, with their pure gleams that speak to me of snow and of the coldness that I love, even on the warmest of nights. And there was still a chill in the air; it was still not quite April. There was still a touch of winter about me. The time of the year in which my powers are greatest was still not quite gone.

I reveled in the crisp air, as always. But my love for the cold faded far into the background of the swirl of emotions that were racing in me, as I longingly sipped at that drink.

That drink sang to me of the summer warmth my sister loved. It sounded to me like the gentle music of her voice. As I tasted that drink I felt again what I had felt each night, for over a thousand years: the comfort and peace of knowing she was there with me.

A poem wandered into my mind, one of the thousand poems of Li Taibai. My sister knew all one thousand of them by heart. I knew many of them myself, although far fewer than she did. The poem now in my thoughts was one that both of us knew.

_Frost coalesces on my bamboo mat, changing its color with cold._  
_ My lonely lamp is not bright, I'd like to end these thoughts; _  
_ I roll back the hanging, gaze at the moon, and sigh, long, in vain._  
_ The beautiful person's like a flower beyond the edge of the clouds._  
_ Above is the black night of heaven's height;_  
_ Below is the green water billowing on._  
_ The sky is long, the road is far, bitterly flies my spirit;_  
_ The spirit I dream of can't get through, the mountain pass is hard._

I thought, _But the spirit _I_ dream of _can_ get through. I am certain of it. _

_She can get through, and she has._

I walked back inside and rejoined Jeo Pal-Gye. This time I sat down on the bar stool next to his, instead of returning to my station behind the bar.

From across the room, Saem the kettle spirit blew me some steam-puffs of greeting, and the ghost of the actor smiled at me and raised his spirit bowl of ice cream in salute. Six hours at least since Lee Han-Joo had made the offering to him, the actor was still working his lingering way through that ice cream.

That, of course, is the advantage of ice cream's spiritual form. It will never melt. The actor's ghost could savor it for as long as he wished.

I smiled back at Saem and the actor and raised my glass in reply. As I took another sip from my drink, I knew that tears were silently rolling down my face. But I saw no need to try and stop them.

"Are you all right, Dong Janggun?" quietly asked Jeo Pal-Gye.

"Yes, Jeo Pal-Gye-ssi," I answered, my voice as quiet as his. "Yes. I am all right."

Further lines of Li Taibai's poetry sounded in my mind. I felt—with almost no doubt—that those lines were spoken in my sister's voice.

_I that go and you that stay _

_ must each drink his cup._

_ I beg you tell the Great River _

_ whose stream flows to the East _

_ that thoughts of you will cling to my heart _

_ when __he__ has ceased to flow._

I looked over and met the questioning gaze of Jeo Pal-Gye; then raised my glass to him.

"To those that go and those that stay," I said. "And to the ones we love. To them, no matter where they are."

Jeo Pal-Gye touched his glass to mine.

"To those that go and those that stay," he murmured hoarsely. "And … to them."

I sipped the drink that I believed my sister had made for me. I sipped that drink, and I prayed that my belief was true.

I prayed that she was with me still, and that I would never be alone.

End Note

{1} Some readers may recognize that the story of the actor's ghost is specifically based on the story of actor Kim Sung-Min (1971—2016). Clearly, the ghost in this story is not intended to _be _Kim Sung-Min—among other differences, the ghost must have died in or around 2007, and as far as I know, Kim Sung-Min never lived at the Hyperion Towers—but the details of the actor-ghost's struggle with addiction, his legal problems and his death are directly inspired by the descriptions in news accounts of the events which culminated in Kim Sung-Min's June 2016 suicide. I have included this element of the story with feelings of deep respect for the memory of Kim Sung-Min, and with respect and sympathy for his family and friends. It's also my attempt, in some small way, to contribute to the campaign of raising awareness about the societal pressures which contribute to the plague of suicide in modern South Korea, reportedly the country with the highest rate of suicide in the world. I suppose it is also an attempt to process and find creative use for my own feelings of sorrow and regret over the death of Kim Sung-Min, an actor I greatly admire, whose career and life ended far too soon.


End file.
